Team CEO presented two horses this year to the ISR/Oldenburg North America inspection held in Kentucky this year. We were so impressed by the outstanding quality of youngsters we saw there. I took all of the working students with me for the day—not that I thought we needed five people to handle these two horses, but rather I thought it would be a really good learning experience for the Working Students. We were proud to present two horses…. Sprite, our 15 year old thoroughbred broodmare, a sister to our Never Stop Dreaming. NSD competed successfully at the advanced level with Megan before being exported to Belgium after being purchased by the Belgian Olympic Team. She is truly an exceptional broodmare and one we searched for many years to find. While she is in her teen years and has a big belly from many years of carrying foals, she is a truly quality broodmare with especially nice hip, terrific bone retiring sound after many races, absolutely amazing feet, and from a sire who is known for producing upper level jumpers. We were very happy that she easily passed her approval, entering into the Main Mare Book for the Oldenburg NA!!!!! Congrats to Sprite!! We also presented Femme Fatale, our first foal out of Sprite. Her sire is a terrific imported dressage horse name Fabuleaux, owned by Dr. Barbara Schmidt and Bridlewood Farm. They have been so amazing to help see us through this process, and I can certainly say that Dr. Schmidt is one of the BEST stallion owners to deal with!!! They have taught me so much about the breeding and warmblood registration process. Thank you!! We are really proud of this filly, who we affectionately call Fizz. (Her mom’s name is Sprite–get it?) She is a beautiful type and very athletic, but also possesses an outstanding brain. Many of the foals today ended up kicking their handlers at some point today…. Fizz was the epitome of good manners, and was really terrific all day. (Even when Chelsea and I were braiding them at 5am!!) She scored a terrific 7.8 at her inspection, and was registered and branded as a full Oldenburg, as her mom was also approved today.

My favorite moment today…. As with all in hand classes, you walk a small triangle then trot a large one. They made up the triangle with white jump poles…. UH OH! Fizz LOVES to gallop around our arena, jumping the dressage railing… It’s her favorite game. (NO, we didn’t teach her that!) So when she saw the white poles everywhere, she offered to forego the trotting portion of the in-hand presentation in leiu of a jumping demonstration! She galloped around the triangle, not worried at all about her mom, busily bouncing the poles in and out of the triangle and alternating them with flying changes each direction. She was SO proud to demonstrate her jump skills—surely the inspectors would be impressed! (We just won’t tell her that there isn’t a score at the inspection for free-jumping suckling foals…. Go figure!) She was having SO much fun.

Congrats to our wonderful ladies, and thanks so much for all of the ws help today!

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About widespreadpanic

Advanced level event rider and instructor at Team CEO Eventing in Lexington KY.